For many years Bulgaria has been the butt of jokes about poor food and
ugly cities. Since the collapse of Communism, though, the country has slowly
struggled to destroy this stereotype and success is now beginning to show.EU Membership has also helped bring Bulgaria to the international stage.

The main tourist draw is the Black Sea coast, but there are a number of
very attractive towns dotted across the country, several historic hill
monasteries, and the capital city, Sofia, which has always been one of the
most important centres of the Balkans area.

In July 2009 my work took me to Sofia, the capital city of Bulgaria. A fairly
uneventful journey got me to the airport and then a typically Balkan hair-raising
taxi journey dropped me at Narodno Sabrovski  the Parliament Square
(like so many squares around the world not square at all but rather an oblong
with a semi-circle).

I was staying at the Radisson Blu Hotel which is one of those frequently
accidentally photographed hotels, standing as it does opposite the Parliament
building and behind the equestrian statue of Tsar Alexander II. I selected
this hotel as much as anything for its key position just around the corner
from the most iconic landmark in Sofia  the
Alexander Nevski Memorial Cathedral.

Having dumped my bags and rested a bit, I decided to head out to try to find
food and to have a look around. It was about 2 in the afternoon so hunger
pangs were beginning to set in. Not far from my digs I found food in the
shape of a very Bulgarian yoghurt dish (cant recall the name now, but
it was essentially balls of very thick yoghurt with dill and honey with a
salad attached). In the building heat of the afternoon this was a refreshing
treat and set me up for a wander around Sofia.

My first stop, of course, was the Alexander Nevski
Memorial Cathedral. It is justifiably a building of which the Sofians
are proud. Recently renovated I was delighted to see the scaffolding was
now off and the great golden dome of the Cathedral glinting majestically
in the sunshine.

It truly is a magnificent church, built in thanks for Russian intervention
in the War of Liberation (of Bulgaria from Ottoman Turkey) between 1882 and
1924. The exterior is a curious mix of very Balkan post-Ottoman arches and
domes and a more obviously Russian-influenced architecture. Once you pass
inside into the gloriously cool interior then you are very much in an Orthodox
environment. Dark and gloomy, shadowy visages of Saints and Martyrs peer
down at you from behind vast candelabra, all lit with flickering (nowadays
fake electric) candlelights.

Back outside and blinking in the harsh evening sunlight I wandered back around
the exterior and then trundled into town.

I returned to the Cathedral a number of times during my stay. This was by
far my favourite thing in Sofia and undoubtedly is one of the great churches
of the world.

Directly across from Alexander Nevski is one of Sofias ancient churches,
St. Sofia. This venerable building dates to the
10th Century and is considered to be a shrine by the Bulgarian people, just
outside it guarded by two concrete lions is the Eternal Flame commemorating
those lost at war and around the opposite side is a simple memorial to the
Jews of Sofia. Bulgaria, almost alone amongst the Balkans, has an exemplary
record during World War II with regard to its Jewish population. Although
the Bulgarians like to make out they did not persecute the Jews at all, that
is perhaps over generous  some very strict anti-Jewish laws were put
in place and the Jews of the parts of Thrace and Macedonia then occupied
by Bulgaria were all deported to the Camps. However, the Jews of Bulgaria
proper were only moved to labour camps along the Danube (still in Bulgarian
territory) and very few were sent to the Death Camps. Although the record
of Bulgaria is not perfect, the Church, Government and particularly the Vice
President Dimiter Peshev did their best for their Jewish population and are
estimated to have saved around 50,000 lives  a fact to be rightly proud
of. Ironically, no sooner had the state of Israel been set up than 90% of
the Jewish population of Bulgaria emigrated.

Across the road from St Sofia and Alexander Nevski is a small bric-a-brac
market which mostly now sells Communist era tat, but also lacework, paintings
and a Bulgarian speciality  rose water. Beyond that you reach yet another
church  the Russian Church. This looks
very much like a standard Russian Orthodox Church, a few gilded frescoes
around the top and a copper spire give it a more attractive edge than its
plain exterior might otherwise have.

Passing beyond this you are on to the main street of Sofia, Boulevard Tsar
Osvoboditel, this opens up into a large square which terminates at one end
with the Presidency buildings and inside its courtyard the oldest of
Sofias churches  St. Georges
Rotunda. This is a truly ancient structure  one of the oldest surviving
working churches in the world, it dates to the Roman period, circa the 2nd
Century, during the reign of Emperor Constantine the Great (a relatively
local lad from Nis in Serbia). In front of
the church are some remains of ancient Serdica  the Roman city that
stood where Sofia does now. The church itself is circular and is decorated
inside with magnificent 12th Century frescoes.

From here you pass through the back of the Sheraton Hotel and come out at
the end of one of Sofias main shopping streets, Vitosha Avenue. Immediately
next door is the last of Sofias great churches,
St. Nedelya  a church with typically Balkan
low arches and pantile roofs around which cluster a small group of souvenir
stands and food sellers. It is one of the places in Sofia where young people
gather of an evening.

Crossing this road you then come to the main Sofia Mosque, the
Banyi Bashi Mosque which dates to 1576. It is
hemmed in by roads on one side but on the other is a small peaceful park.

Directly across the road (and accessed by a slightly unnerving underpass)
is the old Sofia Synagogue  which is
now one of only two functioning synagogues in the country.

I visited some of the latter parts of this tour of religious buildings later
on in my trip. The next two days were solidly at the Conference. On the final
conference day, I left a bit early and headed back into the centre of Sofia.
That morning I had been scammed by a taxi driver outside the Hotel. Each
taxi has to display its fares in the window, so you check for the correct
one with the lower fare. This morning I got into a car with the correct fare
and then he suddenly told me his meter did not work and I could go with his
friend. I jumped into the other car, and it was only once we had started
moving that I saw the huge prices on display in this cars window. So my normal
six Euro fare ended up costing me closer to seventy. This made me considerably
nervous of taxis for the remainder of my trip, but the conference centre
was so far from anything that might be useful (like a bus or the city centre)
that I had to get one back into town  at which point I came across
a distinct lack of customer service at the conference venue and ended up
going into a nearby café and trying to mime needing a taxi to blank
stares.

Once back at my hotel I set off again, walking directly into the city centre.
On Knyaz Al-Batenberg Square you pass the National Museum of Bulgaria which
coincidentally has one of the better souvenir shops in the city attached
to it.

Beyond this is one of the very few Communist era buildings in the centre
of the City, the tower of Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party
building. This has the look of the great towers in Warsaw and Moscow, but
is on a considerably smaller scale. Even so, its position at a key
road junction does mean you come across it frequently.

I found, away from the main streets, Sofia to be a city of small rather rundown
roads with shops that were not overly inviting, a bit dark, and in many cases
ones which seemed to sell whatever they could. This is probably a hangover
from the Communist era and once back on the main drags and the larger, cleaner
streets Sofia had the look of any other southern European city. Masses of
work is being undertaken, at the moment the statue of St. Sofia which is
intended to be a counterpoint to Alexander Nevski at the opposite end of
the city centre is stranded amongst massive holes and deep scaffolding which
rather destroys the look of that end of the city.

I had considerable trouble trying to find food in Sofia. Frequent reference
to guidebooks promising nice pasta restaurants failed to come up with the
goods. For a start many of the roads have no road signs, and being in Cyrillic
did not make it any easier to locate the appropriate roads. Then every time
I found the right road I could not find the restaurant I was being pointed
to. Virtually every day I walked around in growing frustration trying to
find food where I could understand the menu enough to ensure my vegetarianism
would not come unstuck, and every time I did this I ended up hungrily ending
up somewhere else.

My final attempt at this involved trying to find Spaghetti Company, an Italian
café attached to the massive TZUM shopping centre (a very Communist
institution but one which is still hugely popular with the Sofians). I was
on the point of giving up on this one too and had decided to head back towards
home by cutting through a back way. Then I came upon the restaurant, hidden
around the back of TZUM, and had the best meal I had in Bulgaria. Finally,
on my last full day in town, I began to feel like Sofia was growing on me.

Having eaten, and now actually satisfactorily, I headed back towards my hotel.
I stopped briefly in the park outside the National Theatre and had a coffee
by the fountains and statues and contemplated how I would rate Sofia as a
destination. For the moment, I concluded, it still is a place for the more
intrepid traveller. There was still very little English signage (although
I did note a clever innovation whereby each point of interest had a sign
with a phone number which you could call to get more information about what
you were seeing), away from the main streets things were still a bit dilapidated,
but it did have some fantastic churches to visit and in parks and squares
like this one it felt sophisticated and safe. My decided that Bulgaria was
getting there but still has a way to go before it can stand alongside
Greece or Turkey as a Balkan hotspot.

When I reached Nardono Sabrovski the sun was beginning to set. As the
floodlighting started to come on this most attractive part of Sofia began
to take on another look altogether. Lighting bounced off the cobbles giving
a light and dark dappling. The domes of Alexander Nevski beckoned once more
and if anything the Cathedral looked even more glorious than in the daylight.
The now empty cobbles dappled with light from the surrounding buildings and
perfectly aimed lighting catching every angle and cupola.

It was a nice end to my visit to Sofia, a city of great contrasts and
contradictions and one I dont feel I ever quite fully got to grips
with. The next day it was a long leisurely breakfast and then a monstrously
scary (but properly priced) trip in a taxi back to the airport.